Ever since the German Parliament building reopened in Berlin in 1999, its second-largest meeting room has been occupied by what had often been Germany’s second-largest party, the Social Democrats. Even the room’s name, the Otto Wels Hall, bears the party’s imprint: Wels led the Social Democrats from 1919 until the Nazis drove him to exile….
Friedrich Merz’s party won Germany’s national election in late February. After weeks of coalition negotiations, Mr. Merz finally made it to the chancellor’s office late Tuesday afternoon, one failed parliamentary vote and several hours behind schedule. In the interim, nearly all of Mr. Merz’s problems got worse. Forecasts for the stalled German economy, which Mr….
Friedrich Merz became Germany’s 10th postwar chancellor on Tuesday after a historic stumble that could complicate his efforts to revive the nation’s slumping economy, tighten its borders and rebuild its military, at a time when an isolated Europe is hungry for strong German leadership. After 10 weeks as the nation’s leader-in-waiting following his party’s victory…
May 6, 2025, 6:46 a.m. ET An election campaign poster for Friedrich Merz in western Germany this year. Credit…Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Before he returned to politics, won a national election and became the first would-be chancellor in modern German history to fail to win the job on the first ballot in Parliament,…
May 6, 2025, 6:46 a.m. ET An election campaign poster for Friedrich Merz in western Germany this year. Credit…Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Before he returned to politics, won a national election and became the first would-be chancellor in modern German history to fail to win the job on the first ballot in Parliament,…
Two decades ago, before Friedrich Merz came back from the private sector to win the German chancellorship, he accepted an invitation to a gathering of the French Foreign Legion in Corsica. At the last moment, the organizers asked him to arrive on the parade ground not by road or rail, but by parachute. Mr. Merz,…
Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats and its leader-in-waiting for the last 10 weeks, failed in his first parliamentary vote to become chancellor on Tuesday morning. The setback was likely temporary: Mr. Merz’s party, its sister party, the Christian Social Union, and their coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats, still have enough votes…
Two decades ago, before Friedrich Merz came back from the private sector to win the German chancellorship, he accepted an invitation to a gathering of the French Foreign Legion in Corsica. At the last moment, the organizers asked him to arrive on the parade ground not by road or rail, but by parachute. Mr. Merz,…
Exactly six months after Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition imploded, Friedrich Merz, a conservative Christian Democrat, will be sworn in as Germany’s next chancellor on Tuesday. The swearing-in comes after less than two months of negotiation between the Christian Democratic Union, or C.D.U., which came in first with 28.5 percent of the vote, and the incumbent…
Even before presenting a plan on Wednesday for his government, Germany’s likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, persuaded Parliament to bypass constitutional limits to let him spend more on Germany’s military. This led observers to point out that any new German tank would have a hard time crossing a German bridge. The country once vaunted for…